Speedlight Photography Basics

Lesson 8 of 21

Lighting Patterns

Speedlight Photography Basics

Lesson 8 of 21

Lighting Patterns

Lesson Info

Lighting Patterns

Sweet lights off boxes, which I absolutely love um, this is a hybrid soft box it's actually a constant light or strove together and to me, what is old is new again in the old days, if you go one thing I love about create alive you guys never been who you really need to come and sit and create allowed in the front row is they have all this great old photographs on all the walls, you know, this whole wall wallpaper everywhere and there's a lot of it all from the old movies and the old cameras and all of that back then was constant, like because I didn't have strobe technology. And now today with the new technology of the isos getting so much better constant lights coming, making a huge comeback because now it's cool I it's it's, you could stand in front of leave it on for hours and it didn't give you a sunburn make you sweat like the old days. So what I love about the soft box and we're gonna use it just for experiment of showing you what the light looks like is this is their three befor...

e has four lights in it and so you can set it up like this it's very bright, I love you what jails in front of, we use it for babies and and pets and everything else so the flash doesn't scare him we had to have some clients that are either hypersensitive to strobes and so they blink a lot this helps and we also have some kids that have health issues epilepsy or anything else and so no stroke this helps for everything so we love this product but mason can you come out here real quick don't you stand this way yeah I'm back up right here I just kind of want to show you and make sure the cameras can see so we're kind of angling correctly for the camera move over a little bit this way all right so there's three main really too but we're going over three lighting patterns that I want you to talk about and that we want to talk about that basically will add or remove attractiveness to your image and I want to show you on this light while this is not what this class is about what you can visually see it you there online khun visually see it I hope and then the thing about flash photography that's so hard if you have to take what you're going to see here and imagine it and put your flash to make the same identical lighting pattern so there's basically two sides you have your short side of her face and you have a broadside of the face does anyone know what a short life and a broad light iss short it's very, very simple. I want you look forward and I want you to turn your nose just towards this light a little bit that right there would be short like why would that be? Sure, like you're seeing the light inside of her face primer early that's, right it's the short side of the face if you're photographing from that camera straight from you the short side of our face is the side that slip so the broadside that's there's in the dark now she turns her nose away from the light that's broad light come back a little bit right there never would really want to do this with a girl broad light will make them look heavier and last time I checked there's not a woman on this earth that wants to make herself look heavier. Now macy is a skinny little thing and we could get away with it with her and I have some examples so you could if you have a bride or a model or a senior of this when you she shows up, you can take a sigh relief, because if you mess up on your lighting patterns it will make life a lot easier. It's not gonna hurt you as much, but if you have someone to plus size model our most normal people that aren't skinny like macy you never want a broad liner you want always. And the easiest way to short light is to turn the woman's body away from the light. And then have her face turned towards the light that's a classic s figure curve and then her nose towards light, even if they're straightforward go straightforward, I keep one to do it. We're gonna have a model, even the straightforward just turn your nose to the light if she just turns out I was just a little bit no, not that much. Look, just living a look forward that short light so that no satellite will always make sure life the nose away from the light will make broad like broad light is used for boy mainly you, khun turn. If she was a guy, let me do it because you definitely towards the light broad light, manly, tough girls, that's what you wanted it turn your body away from the light, turn their head into the light to get that nice girlie figure which I hadn't a pregnant girl figure maybe, but that's about it. So turn her away, and in turn of face into it that is the foundation of posing the bear foundation that you want to emulate with this these flashes, so if this is your flash that's, how you're going created there won't be any light on her but you want to turn her towards a lot away from the light and turn our face toward the light always turner and there's a big difference when we start a session I say there's the head and then there's the neck so if I do this they know to start the light head and if I do this they know to turn there so make it otherwise they're kind of doing this in the session and you don't know what the heck they're they're trying to do and I even do that with my brides I say just turn your nose a little bit this way just just turning a little bit this way so she turned her nose had the light there and we take the photo just a little bit makes a huge difference huge difference because with flash unlike mesi come over here this beautiful light there's hardly any shadow I mean there's some over here because it is see how the gradual like really falls off it's beautiful that's why I love these lights from sweet light flash and I'm gonna get that flash you're gonna have a lot harsher shadows because it's a smaller light sources out putting a little bit of light in a very tiny area so you have to know where to put the flash it is extremely important with flash photography to know where to put the flash. If it's bounced flash, you have to know exactly where to balance it. If it's off camera, which we'll talk about very soon, you have to know where to put that off camera light otherwise you're gonna have horrible horror shadows, shadows they're actually really good in your work you want shadows without shadows, everything is flat lip when you look at me and you and I'm looking at you, everything about you has has some former texture on you some form of contour that's how I know that you're a three dimensional person where we're putting everything on a two dimensional playing a piece of paper, the more shadows you have, it makes it look more three dimensional and that's the goal look at hdr high definition rains that that I mean it all plays into that part, so you want shadows, you just need to know where to put them and that's where we're going to kind of start going into the other one is and we're going to show you some examples is butterfly and I have a really hard time showing butterfly like I have some great examples here it's hard, but what butterfly light is is if I had the light from up above coming down straight down and it's really great for plus size models as well. It's really great for people like me that have no direct line of chin. They have this this extra chin down here because the light coming down well, actually, then their cheeks out, and I got these big old chubby cheeks. I'm telling what between susan, I'm a life if we have a baby that's going to be the round his face baby in the world, because we both have these huge cheeks and it slims your cheeks down, it gives you a chin line and it takes gives you cheek line, and it takes away all this down here to give you a direct line. So those are the three, and we do that all the time with a flash, because with a flash I can get a mon a pod or a stand and just hold that light up here and shoot right down on her. So those were really the three light patterns, the foundation we're going to go over some other ones, but that's, the broad in the short like that, I think about that for the light patterns of light style and the butterfly lighting style, those three that I really want you to concentrate on, and then we're going to go from there, but does this make sense where you can see the short does? It makes the short abroad now I know, uh, matthew, the body last week had a creative live, and if you didn't see it, you really ought to see it because it was really good stuff on, and I was fine tuning this program last week, making sure I put everything in it and I was going over this and he explained shortened, broad light purple that was like hate you, matthew, because that's what I was going to dio, but he explains it really, really well and also in his program. So anyway, short, broad, like, I want you to understand that because that is the foundation of everything you're going to do with wireless, flash everything and remember female body away from the light if my main light and this is my flash her body's away, you never want to put weight towards the camera. You want to put weight away from the camera so her body would be away weight on the back foot and turn a shoulder towards it. Classic pose easy will slim down every girl with wireless flash it'll actually make more details, and you'll actually have a shadow under her chin, which also makes you look thinner. Okay, thank you. Okay, we'll talk about a little of this, and we'll get this out of the way and turn it off how about a quick question yeah, of course I could use a few before you pull that off we talk about that light that you're using there yeah it's it's it's it's really cool it's the this has got an alien b which again a lot of people don't like alien bees because they're inexpensive I'm a business guy and if it works I love it before I had my foot full time like I was hard point photography I would buy the latest and greatest of everything came down the pipe and then as I got in the business and I had to expand and other things I'm like you know what? That camera still takes really good photos which it's? Well I'm using a mark three mark two we have other cameras but what I love about this is the hybrid nous I love that as you see it's bright this has four lights I have a strip that has six lights in it but it also has and you can buy multiple back plates if you have photogenic. So whatever else it also has the strobe innit? So I literally can use this as a modeling lamp if I want to and then have maestro just like normal photography or I could just have this and just use natural I mean the light coming from it raise my also upon my camera which is so great and shooting my studio with this what's so nice about this is when I shoot this way constant I can shoot at one eight I could shoot one too I could put my fifty millimeter one two on and shoot it one two and then I can use strobe strobe it and now I have to because here I don't have any flash there's no flash thinks need to worry about we strove I have to be at one two hundred twenty fifty of the second so I have to shoot it f ate in the studio so that one background that I'm using that has a pattern is perfectly and focused with my strobe and perfectly blurred out at one point eight or one point two so that one background looks like two different complete backgrounds again saving me money so that's why I absolutely the sweet light products and there there's someone new it's a new company that has it it's the same basic foundation of other soft boxes but the hybrid this is the new part and that's what I love about it. What type of bulbs? Mike uh there are bulbs in this yes they're in I'll tell you what I'll turn off, I'll show you, but because it is bright but it's basically a cool fluorescent um and this one again holds four that's the model and alien be and they're they're a little warm what what frequency uh you know I don't know I'd have to look um but they're big they're not that expensive and also what I love about this this never yellows if you buy an expensive soft box this will yellow and just like we talked about now you have a yellow jail in front of everything so again you shooting anyone that has skin tone issues it's going to make him look like they're sick because everything's gonna come out really really warm and so this is really really a nice product fact this one was shipped in just for me to show this and I look at this and I'm like, oh my god might also hold because mine are so beat down and and brooke and I see the shiny beautiful thing but you can see this strobe is in the back that's this is the alien be part and then this is the hybrid part so I could do either or and there's not many soft boxes on the market that khun do do both and that I know what you're buying is actually the four light the you're buying the soft box and the four lights okay and then the back like to match your your actual stroke you have like photogenic you buy just the back yeah said so instead of the alien be back here you're photogenic would just sit right there yeah, so the back plate just screws in and also if you don't have this alien be it comes with a mountain here that you can actually put this just the constant on a stand. So if you don't have a stroke at all it's a really well thought out product, I mean, it's, I don't try taking part of class, I'm not tryingto pimp it out, I actually use this product so I mean it's it's one of those things that it's just and actually I make no money from him, so maybe yeah, maybe I maybe I should, but no it's it's that what really got us is we had about three years ago, four years ago we had a young man is that kind of mentioned a senior who it too had brain cancer and he had built palsy and some other stuff and strobes really affected him in a negative way, and I did not have a constant light at that time that was brought enough and it really limited us in our session for him, and it upset me because we didn't feel we didn't give him everything I knew we could, and so I was really on a search to find a constant light and since we found it and this is a new product, since we found this when I'm extremely happy with it and then again as I said earlier rules over to dogs and it rolls over toe other things that aren't it's controllable little kids I can lay it down that khun running a huge circle and I can photograph all day long this's sweet light some lies and the cost for reflektor I do not know the whole thing is about this is anywhere depending on what you buy they have anything that rains from two, three hundred dollars all the way up to around eight hundred for soft box and they have kits and everything else um if you want to start off my advice is to get just the soft because this is so bright because we have a giant ring light also it's three by minutes before before that we made that has twelve very similar bulbs on and they're very cool balanced like this I turn my ailing me down all the way in the back and the on the lowest power strobe I still get a nice soft rim light and then I can get this constant light up front so if you don't have enough money to buy everything constant get the one which is what we started off with and then from there we bought the strips and so now I have this and two strips for constant which pretty much covers anything that I really need to do but I love the hybrid nous anyway, I'm sorry we're kind of getting off track but that okay, we get it out of the way now let me unplug it so you can't unplug the one, okay, thanks for carrying. Thanks for tearing that open because we were all a little confused as to whether the light was coming from the alien be or the softball. No, no. Yeah, yeah, that was perfect. Thank you. Good. You good yet? No. And and that's, what I like about it is that I have both because before the hybrids route after that, that individual that we had we have four by six. So the same soft box but he did have a hybrid and actually drilled into the back plate and actually mounted too. One hundred one are two, two hundred watt bulbs that had a light switch on to give me more modeling. So but it's still not as broad as this, but it was the same kind of general concept, but the broader modern lamps allowed me to see the pattern just like we showed you. And that was my my concept and it kind of allowed me some constant light, but this is taking what my idea was to a whole nother level and it's it's so effective that you really have to power sources one to the hybrid martok, yet you have two plugs so I mean that's what she was doing with one plug for the only b we just unplug here that one hasn't plugged it just hard wires into it. Well, I'm kind of on top of that it's a great it's a great product okay, so again we're going to kind of now show you some examples of loop lighting and stuff loop luke lighting is really what you're going to get when you use or would use off camera and bounced lighting and I wanna explain what loop line is you see the shadow right here on his nose makes a little lute that's luke that's loop line that's all of this so you know from looking at this obviously it's the bright and you can see the light in his eyes the light's coming from this direction and it makes that loop this is about as low as you want the light you get this light any lower that luke goes sideways on his nose and it doesn't look very good if you raise it too high that luke goes below his mouth then looked that good and if you raise too far to the side that luke's going way over on his cheek doesn't look very good so what is that like a little above level and that's the part that's a great observation that's the part that I found was so hard when I first started doing lighting with flash is that with this soft box when you when I learn soft boxes, I put that soft walks if I'm staying here that bottom part of the back soft boxes right here on my shoulder, so I have all that salt box way up here and all in front of me. You saw how beautiful that light fell over on macy's face it just feels over harley didn't even need a reflector. I mean, it was just so easy to do well with a flash, you can't do that because again, you don't have a huge light source, so I was raising it way up high thinking it was my soft box and it would be hitting my eyebrow, especially my boys, and have a bigger brown line and put in huge shadows under the eyes. Yes, what about if you're using multiple flash in a starbucks? Well, the soft boxes going help spread? Absolutely I mean that's the whole problem in the game we're going to talk about the future is tomorrow and that's some of the issues that they solve, but you also hit one of the issues that calls is that when you put a flash in front of a diffuser box, it takes away at least the stock will power, and so you're really that's the that's, the biggest negative of these little guys if you don't have a big power of a stroke, and so you have to either work with what you got with one flash, or you have to add multiple flashes. But what? That also reminded me one thing I didn't talk about when we were talking about high speed sinker right before the break is high speed sync instead of one giant flash burst it's that multiple little flash burns like we said, but on a technical level, that's a lot softer life. All those little flash burst is almost a diffuser in itself. So instead of one giant flash burst it's a bunch of little ones, and so it doesn't make a softer life by using high speed stick. So with this, I found especially boys, because, again, boys have thicker eyebrows, the brow line. If you raise it up too high, you're going to get really bad shadows of their eyes, so when you see that you gotta lower the lot. You got a lower it down almost to the point where it's, almost even in the face, where it's almost even just slightly above their eyes, and it took me a really hard time to learn that were to sink that end where that's, what needs to be done, because with my studio stuff, everything it's completely opposite. Clearly opposite and then with light, this is what you're going to get, and then what I was talking about. You don't want that loop to come over to its mouth, because now we're getting into another pattern called rembrandt lighting, which is not that important for right now it is important, but it's not important, what we're talking about, and if you raise it to high it's going to go too low, he raises too low it's going to go to the side and it just doesn't look good. And then again, if you pull this too far in the front, his nose is gonna cause a huge shot on the side. So it's a nice, simple pattern, and now a shadow on the nose will tell you where the light is and if it's correct or not, so use that as a training tool as you continue photographing. All right, and this is butterfly. This is one of my wife's photos. This's, one of the best photos in the people competition this last year went alone, which is one of the elite. But look at them like under her nose. See this light right here, see how thins her cheeks down that's, what butterfly lighting will do. This is a beautiful beautiful pattern a butterfly and chris that just happen to have a butterfly that's just coincidental but it's a beautiful lighting pattern, but the way you make that happen is you put the light directly above them if it's off the one side or the other, this little shadow will be a little lopsided which can cause them it doesn't quite look real well, but directly straight down this shot we had a reflector and you noticed we have two strong room lines everything we do in try coast has strong room lights back light and we're gonna talk about that when we get the multiple lights tomorrow but get ready because tomorrow we're gonna have some fun stuff it's round lights and multiple lights but I love love love love love room like I love a hairline I think it's important you have to be a little a little careful with gentlemen that air going a little little bald on top, but besides that it's a great great thing because it pulls them out. If we did not have that backlight on her, she would just blend into the background you wouldn't be able to see that separation on dh then also it helps add comes in here and helps add that dimension of her chin and her jaw line and really shrinks her down and makes her a lot thinner so this is a perfect example of how butterfly light comes from above slightly in front of your subject and the light off the cheekbones chan created a more dramatic look um again, jim hill and jay was on creative lie the other day and she is the one that taught me butterfly lining because I'd heard about it and I've tried it and I just didn't know when she when she showed it was like, oh, that's perfect that's so awesome! So we try to do this, um probably at least once with every one of our girls, um, in our studio with lighting, we try to give at least three lighting patterns and every every session, so if it's a loop lighting if it's a butterfly lighting there's something, we try to change up and give it least three different styles of light because to our clients, when they see it, they might not know why they like this image if it's just the one butterfly image but a flashlight, but it's so different pair to the other luke let's say lupus, the standard, then this one's going to stand out and we're going to get a large wall portrait out of them because they get excited when they see it now is that butterfly light uh, directly in front of the subject yours that, uh like this I don't know if they can get this and apologized but some five this is the line it's about right here but it be lower but would be right here yeah it's like right here just slightly in front of the front of my client and it's angled down shoot and what's great about you see this deep shadowing and chin they got the chain problem like I have to give you all from shimla it takes away all the gods so it's really slims or face down so it's a it's a great great pattern for women and guys I wouldn't put a guy with a flower on your head and a butterfly but it's still a great it's a grand kind of guy do what depends on the guy especially a guy like me well even with the chin even with the facial hair it'll still slim it down and like you have a longer beard it'll still slim you down and it really no square takes it all the way give you that gives you the face lift and you don't have to do it any and post work it's part of light and that's that's what I want you to start playing with I want you to understand with these little guys you khun do all this light is light it doesn't matter yes this could be a little more complicated but light is like you still can absolutely do it makes sense. Okay, we get the riff, you these okay, we're going to have to go back because I have a bunch of other stuff I want to talk about, but this let me actually go back real quick on this because I want to forget about something. What we've been talking about is more on camera, but I've been showing some off camera examples, so it kind of gave it away because I messed up like an idiot. What is one of the easiest ways to get a camera off the flash? The easiest way without knowing any of the knowledge shooting, just like he would shoot on camera would be an off camera shoot cord and you could get a cannon and icon it's full ti tl full capabilities of everything else. I have one in my bag almost all the time instead of your flashy just slide wrong to your hot shoe and he just comes up and you can put a flash on it and it's like the expendable little bendable cord. The beauty that is for fifty dollars, you have off camera lighting and all these patterns that we've been showing you I can do easily, I can literally hold that flash it like this and get off I won't have any red eye, I'll be able to take pictures of my fish in my aquarium I'll be able to bounce the light now if I wanted to I could do direct flash I could do all that with a simple fifty dollars offshoot can record and the beauty is you have all the tl capabilities you have all everything that your flash has on the camera off the camera because it's wired it's kind of like today with internet wireless is great but wired lots of times better cause wireless will will fail it's the same concept, so when I always when I have problems with wireless or something, I'm always going to go back toe having that wired cord it's kind of my again another insurance policy and allows me to basically allows me to basically not have flat, ugly lighting and I can actually get creative for that one light that one line I can actually bounce across their face, hit a wall, come back and give that strong room lighting that we're talking about here that could do it literally with one life I wouldn't have on both sides, but I could have it on one side for sure kind of what we're trying to do here, but it didn't really work because it's not one too close makes sense when you go back a little bit more so I wanna review on this because this is important for what we're going to do later on today and definitely tomorrow broadside no good don't ever brought sat a girl you khun broadside guys short side is what you want for a girl and then butterfly light comes from down up above if you want you can also there's a I don't have a photo of it but it's called larry peter larry peter's which is an amazing senior portrait out of ohio since report artist he makes what's called an eyeliner and it's basically just a curved giant reflector and people look at it and they go there's no way I'm going to spend that much money for that I'll go make me one well first of all I don't have enough time to make all this stuff I got to make money I'm a photographer I will have made the first time a lot of cost me quite a bit of money my very first session I made money I made it up it allows you to in this image put the light here and you see the light in her eyes how it's lit up and what did I say earlier about lightning eyes but don't have lightly eyes I failed so that light comes down giving me the butterfly pattern and the reflector bounces up and gives a curve in the eye underneath the eye every time we do that it's a wall portrait every time and then I started doing it with my flash outside now with the kirby just to reflect your underneath or a white piece of paper just like we showed and I started getting light bounced back up, she completely changed. My entire image is completely changed everything about what we were trying to do so that one flash come from down up above come down and give me the butterfly have a reflector or something that reflect back up that was white and it would give the light in the eyes because if you put up above, you can darken the eyes if you need to have it forward so it will hit the eyes but by coming down given the butterfly pattern in the nose and then the light coming up into the eyes your golden and that's where you have to think about the angles like playing the table pool like I talked about so you know that light's coming down with that flash and now I have to angle that reflector to hit their eyes that's where our studio later peters the islander comes with so much play because I don't think about the angle, I just shove that thing up underneath their face and it worked perfect does that make sense? I know which had a photo of it it's just you mount it on a regular stand light stand small, light stand and it's about this big lied about this long about this wide and it's just a curve but the curve and the anguish that's often an angle the curve of the angle is perfect for the human eye they did a lot of mathematics to it they made it look so simple that they think anyone could make one but it's the perfect mathematics that when you slide it under it gives you the reflection in their eyes so again it's alert here I latter it's golden um I refused to buy for two years because I kept saying I was going to make one kept saying was going to make one all that's ridiculous I'm going to make one final I said go buy it we did it and later the first session our average for our high school seniors is right around eight hundred eighteen hundred to two thousand in our studio and the first session again that we just do that one shot with that and so when you show and we project in our in our studio and so when they're showing all the images projecting and we use pro select a software that you khun say yes or no or maybe two every time that comes up it's yes because it completely looks different it completely blows them out of the water with their lighting and so we started taking that which is where I'm going with all this that concept in the studio and we moved it outside with wireless flash and flash on the camera and that's to me is when that's that's, the beauty that's the exciting part of this is when you can emulate what you do in the studio and you could bring it outside with the smaller flash units a lot harder, harlan curve, but you can do it, it's no different. You just have to be more fine tune with it. And so I started in my studio looking at all the images that I liked looked it studied all the patterns and all the images, and I sort of looking at ourselves what images people bought because people today will say, oh, no out portrait studios don't sell pork portrait studio porters don't sail that no one wants everybody wants outside any true that's not true if you give them a quality studio portrait, you almost always will outsell an outdoor portrait because everybody does outdoor portrait and they haven't seen good quality studio work, but then we studied the ones sold well and emulated that lighting outside and that's when our sales started going up and it's no different. I'm just learning how to use the wireless flash properly with the light with light placements using those three lining patterns that basic basic lighting patterns that everybody's heard of, but hardly anyone uses. When we were traveling the world doing our weddings, I thought I was just hot stuff I'm going to africa I'm going all over europe I'm photographing weddings everywhere and some comes up to me and goes you're lighting sucks I'm like what do you mean like what are you talking about? That's what fighting words, man I'm ready and I started studying there so I'll go back home you said my lighting sucks and I'm all the way it sucks so I'm gonna prove him wrong and I start looking through all the images that I'm going to crap that's broad lit man I brought let her I brought I'm broad light never won about of course my lady does so I was really mad because I didn't realise because all my brides were thin on my brides were beautiful that's easy photography that's easy photography and they're in huge weddings of the table pieces were twenty thousand dollars would you take a snapshot? I had nothing to do with me anybody could do a great photo and so once I got to that realization and I kind of accepted the fact that this person was correct and I started studying this one chart it completely changed my lighting concepts it completely changed my lighting world and I really started paying attention instead of just putting her there because we first start off you in photography trying to learn f stop shutter speed and wait a minute stop you know, twenty two allows it maur less lighting you know and all that backwardness it was tough so you finally get that and you go outside and you take a photograph and you're proud of yourself cause you understood it and then you realize there's a tree coming out of the back of her head because now you're you're not paying attention to the background because they've got too many squirrels running around in my head and I haven't been able to consul everything down so now I think I got it all and then someone slapped me over the face same aligning, horrible and at this point everybody's thinking, oh you're linings great! Wow! So I've got a chip on my shoulder and he knocked it off and thank goodness he did because it completely changed me if you pay attention to this when you're photographing and then pay attention to what we talked about placement of light, that simple light pattern of the loop with broader short and in the loop on the butterfly it will change your whole patter. It will change the way you photograph when you said you emily the butterfly effect outside, then then do you have them like, hold that whiteboard or do you have, like just have underneath them? Dude, I'm I'm such I'm such a rig I rigged up every day and I'll just slide underneath and throw it on the ground put a rock on it or something just to hold that could be really you know what works really well in this situation like that is the the stuff you put in your car window, their windshields to reflect sun and they banned yeah, you can just kind of curl that up also, I'm used that before, it doesn't take much. The problem is the island is so beautiful is because the mathematics is perfect and so you're not going to get the perfect the perfect aspect of the light you win a studio outside, but that's also part of the beauty of outside I mean is I talked about the one thing that I love about curative live it's kind of that garage music feel you know, you get to see the behind the scenes when I'm watching it very in the segment when the they take the camera, they go all the way up and I'm like, oh, that's, so cool it gets see so the first time I got here, I was like just all excited to see, which is why I think it's cool for you guys to be here and I think that's the difference between studio and outdoors studio should be perfect lining and not many people do perfect line anymore they don't consider this, they don't consider excuse me that they think it's so easy I'm not going to do studio lighting but it's very much like a lot of people that say they don't like flash the only natural lifetime because they don't understand flash humans have a hard time admitting we don't know everything it's eagle thing it's just human nature and so once you like said I didn't either once that guy knocked the chip off my shoulder and it made me realize it made me go back and look at my work it humbled me and I think that's that's really good and so to me studio lighting should be perfect and the outdoor lighting could be a little flawed because that's kind of the garage feel that's kind of the fun nous of the outdoor because it's also your selling experience you're on the beach having fun you're in the trees in the woods whatever that's part of it as well where studio doesn't have that okay so we're gonna kind of go to the off camera this is the offshoot camera chord it's a simple canon nikon has um they have versions in overseas that you can get that a very expensive and the neat thing about it they have extenders back before back for the hat off camera line back before the cannon five fifty came out which is the first flash of the cannon that actually has the built in optical wireless system which we're going to talk about soon. Um this is what I did when I was a crime scene I literally had these offshoot came accords with extenders and I'd run lights all the way around my scene and I had polaroids teo and pull out a polaroid and the polaroid flasher would set up and had everything in the polar flashes set off on my peanut lights and then I pull out my camera and I plug put that on my flash and taking the wood take all my images because polaroid was my digital in case my film didn't turn out I had to have those ten polaroids for court but then I couldn't do just a direct flash I was putting little column peanut slaves back then little bitty lights all over the place to light up my scene and that's where all this came from and so to me this is one of the most valuable tools and you came back so many people overlook now it would be great to actually have it we do it on the card for you oh uh carpet I guess I need to shut up and hold it up so yeah here's the canon it's very simple and stretch it out pretty far it's simply mounts that was pretty slick bythe very very simple slides right on again this is why you have to have the cantor and icon because she does use the full tl capabilities so it's gotta have the right aspect and then your flashes mounts directly onto this and then what's neat about it is it has right here on the bottom where you command it right on a light stand or you can hold it up so I literally and if you notice it's a little foot so if I wanted to I can use one of my feet we talked about and I can slide it right on as well. So this is how I usually go around shooting just like this in fact, mason, can you come out here quick, please? You can go to just stand right in front of great paper about right here, right here. Perfect. You can switch over to tether and I appreciate it and I have no earthly idea what like settings are. So we're just gonna be kind of goofing off here. What? You're getting ready like I have one of those chords, but I flying, holding a camera for very long, particularly well, no. Yeah. Give and that's when the lands and pulling this out up here very awkward. No, solely the l bracket thing is is golden absolutely. And that's what I want to kind of show is that this is just kind of some direct laugh groups two dark that's why I said, let me just my settings, I need the look I'm talking okay, for better now, this is full tl direct flash. Diego. Not meeting anything. Letting the camera meter I was on manual before. Simple shot, straightforward, but now just simply knows the light. Perfect. You could get a lot. Don't worry about the shadow. I'm just want to show you a whole different look between the two. Very, very simple. Very, very easy. Anywhere between fifteen hundred dollars in get a brand. Even an off brand is even more expensive than that. Very, very simple. Yes, it can get hard. We would have the bracket. The bracket is basically there to keep from having red eye that's where that whole foundation comes from. In the old days, you'll see a huge giant brackets with big, big lights. Anything else? This is all you need. If you want to change your flight ng with a flash, this is all you need. Nothing more now, it's. Not all I need with what I do what I like. But when I first started off this villainy when I was a crime scene, all I did because I literally could take sidelining. I could take flatlining. I could take lighting from both sides. I can little do anything detail shots for rings. This is a great setup because I can little shoot off the side I don't know if anyone's ever shot diamond especially round cut diamond they're not the easiest the light will bounce off the back of the diamond comeback through make everything look soft nothing looked sharp by giving some side lighting it takes away all those issues thank you so very very simple and again I lost my will be where'd I put it okay so yeah the bracket I have about five likes of five brackets I don't use them any more if you would like when I'll be happy to see you um in fact in my old storage here that I haven't looked at in like fifteen years actually went through the other day and uh well when that long maybe ten years ago it was it's my daughter's thirteenth birthday tomorrow and so I was getting some old photos to skein into embarrass her on on twitter and facebook for throwback thursdays and I found a bunch of my old brackets and I totally forgot about so from this but this is how I started all this is this is my foundation in photography and then what we're going to really get into in the next break and the next part of the whole workshop was being basically how to get that flash off the camera but we're going it's going to be some really, really, really fun stuff one more thing on this as you said, it gets heavy but if you don't what to do this what we just did and if you don't have a bracket you can actually get a stand really easy can I actually get one of those stands? I'm not real sure where they are and I know it was a plan so the creative life people would kill me. Perfect. Thank you. Yeah, you have the cheetah stands or you have the dandy's easy stands. This is what I like to dani's even stand a little better um because the legs are thicker and so they hold off a little bit better but it opens and closes and do what? This is an old design. Their original design was a red wing in the seventies and eighties guy in dallas had created it and disappeared for a long time. And so I got this and I level because you literally could just pick up the legs and now you can lay this down right here and it's gonna open for legs. I always put it under my foot when I'm in a nice place with nice floors because I don't want to damage their floors but it's great for like in between church pews or whatever else but this is a dainty manufacturing product and so you literally with this type of thing you could mount this and have that mounted and you're attached but you literally could just pick this off I'll go with you as well too if you don't have that bracket because I've done that before as well and so it makes it a little easier so if you have a camera on your neck have that and it's good and it's a little cumbersome but if you need off camera lighting it's easy to do you can mount that flash on that stand and just slide it on and off is well need to stand on the bases well so I've done that as well I don't know if that helps you because it does as we get over I'm totally with you so it does get a little harder on the body no I didn't know you could take that plastic piece yeah no yeah I don't even have it when you first get on a little plastic people but that's great just that's also for me to know because it goes it goes back and I know we don't have much time with the segment but when I first taught photography was in college it was in the junior college and soaks out it was in the film days and the first final the halfway point mid semester was a test question twelve exposed twelve exposures each exposure was a test question and so I've got the film back I'm excited I'm developing in the darkroom and is it slowly starts developing? I realize one major flaw in my teaching every photo was blurry because I forgot to teach how to focus. So you just taught me a valuable lesson that's something that I take for granted every day I don't yes, it's just you unscrew it and now you can actually screw on I buy something extra to be a way no, you do not need to buy. You don't need to buy this. You don't need to buy that. What? I waited not all all but the majority of them now has it. So you just unscrew that and you can actually just screw you, khun, just screw this thing. This base just right into it. Lovely. Cool. Thank you. I've wasted a lot of money now and then you come out anything you want so it's a really it's a really simple. And even your big light stands usually had have this as well. So just be you and they put that on there for you don't cut yourself and everything else I lose him I pretty much take him off and thrown away and just end up with this. But yes, that is and that's that's dirty it's not going anywhere, okay, that's good, I like it.

Class Description

Join Mike Fulton for a comprehensive course on speedlight photography — including how to use this versatile flash system to increase efficiency and expand your creative ability.

In this course, you’ll master all of the many buttons and features of speedlights. You’ll learn about each of your flash’s settings: manual, TTL, direct, bounce, off-camera, and more. You’ll explore the relationship between your camera and your flash, so you can move away from shooting in auto mode and toward capturing more nuanced, dynamic images. You’ll troubleshoot common flash issues and gain confidence manipulating the light from your speedlights to get exactly the look you want in your photographs. Mike will also cover the lighting choices that take an image from being just nice to look at to being highly marketable.

This speedlight photography course is the definitive experience for anyone ready to become an expert user of this powerful, adaptable lighting system.

cmc

Someone should tell this nice guy, Mike that he should restrain his comments and do his homework and structure the course and sticks to it. Of 100s of pictures he took not even one was inspiring or great shot. Yes, he did say that "I am not going to make good image", why not I ask? I do believe he is not only a nice individual but knows the tech side, not sure if he can make artistic images.

a Creativelive Student

I am in the midst of watching this class through the videos I purchased and am very impressed by how in depth the information is. VERY happy with this purchase. I like Mike’s ability to make concepts easy to understand and also that he shows you by example what he means.
As a direct result of watching this class, while visiting family yesterday I found myself looking at my grandson’s face as light was shining on him through a window and thinking to myself, “Oh, that is short lighting and when he turns his face it becomes broad lighting.”
Thanks, Mike. Can’t wait to see what other gems of understanding I have in store for me in the rest of the class videos.

user-457531

Excellent course, especially when I learnt something within the first 5 mins of watching it.
I have found Creative Live courses to be very thorough in detail and equally practical in application.
10 out of 10
Creative Live support has also been 💯 % helpful
Thanks guys..